


I owe 'em that at the very least

by raichucraft



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Adoptive Parent Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Dynamics, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Parent Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Sleepy Bois Inc as Family, Wilbur Soot and Technoblade and TommyInnit are Siblings, he's not perfect but phil is a better dad than canon, like non minecraft modern
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:22:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29534688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raichucraft/pseuds/raichucraft
Summary: “Give me the bottle, Tommy.”“No.” The blonde’s voice is hard, but he’s betrayed by his wet eyes and trembling lip.“I said, give it back.”Or,Wilbur is unreachable, Tommy is worried, and Techno doesn't seem to care until he does.
Relationships: Technoblade & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 222





	I owe 'em that at the very least

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warning: this fic contains  
> \- implied alcoholism/alcohol abuse  
> \- talk of blood and cuts (not selfharm)  
> stay safe!
> 
> title from pothole by modern baseball
> 
> this is a little out of context, but i hope to make this a series, so hopefully everything will be cleared up. basically what you need to know is that wilbur and techno are twins, they were adopted by phil years ago, and tommy was adopted a few years later. wilbur is struggling and his family doesn't know what to do.

“Give me the bottle, Tommy.”

“No.” The blonde’s voice is hard, but he’s betrayed by his wet eyes and trembling lip. 

“I said, give it back,” the older one snarled, taking a step closer. Though their height difference wasn’t as severe as it had been a few years ago, the brunette seemed to loom over his brother, casting a shadow over him. Tommy knows he’s cornered, and that he isn’t going to beat Wilbur in a direct fight. His eyes dart about, searching for an escape route. He can’t go left unless he leaps onto the unstable coffee table, but he can’t go right either, he knows he’ll trip over the lamp cord and cause a scene. 

Gritting his teeth, the blonde makes to go left before darting to the right, placing a foot on the rickety old table, hoping that he wouldn’t be the cause of its ultimate demise. Unfortunately, fate couldn’t give Tommy that blessing. Wilbur’s hand yanks the back of his shirt and he loses his balance, putting his other foot down hard to try and stop gravity from doing its job. The oak wood seemed unable to handle the entirety of the boy’s weight, and down it went with a crash. 

The lights flicked on and both boys looked up guiltily from the floor. An angry looking Philza is backed by an even more tired than usual Techno in the doorframe, arms crossed. 

“What the hell is going on in here?” Neither speaks up, Wilbur pointedly looking away as he lets go of Tommy and sits up, while the other boy pushes himself off the ground gingerly, unsuccessfully attempting to avoid the shattered glass around him. The air stinks of alcohol, making Tommy’s stomach turn. While Phil surveys the scene in confusion, Techno’s tired eyes harden with realization as he recognizes the anger in his twin’s face and the shifty, almost masked fear in his younger brother’s. 

Hearing Tommy’s hiss of pain as he prods at a cut on his hand, Techno seizes his opportunity. “I’m gonna help Tommy clean up,” he rumbles, voice deeper than usual from sleep. Pulling the blonde up easily with one hand, he almost drags the teen to the bathroom. The light in here is much brighter than in the living room, making it easy for the older to see the tears building in his companion’s eyes. For a moment, Techno regrets taking charge. If he hadn’t rushed downstairs in a panic, convinced the Xbox was being stolen, if he hadn’t taken Tommy out of a situation that was already nasty at best, if he hadn’t-

Techno shook himself internally. No time for if onlys, he just needed to patch up Tommy and find a way to keep him out of earshot of the scene that was surely taking place in the living room for as long as possible. A thought lingered in the back of his mind, though. What was the point of trying to shield Tommy from it when he obviously knew too much already? 

“Sit,” he said, nodding to the toilet. The blonde obeyed him as if in a trance, sinking to the lid. Techno swung open the mirror to find the first aid kit they kept in the cabinet behind it, pulling out bandaids and some kind of ointment Phil always used on Techno’s own injuries. The blonde dutifully but silently held out his arm when prompted, and Techno wet a washcloth to clean the blood that oozed sluggishly from the wounds. At this point, the older was starting to get slightly unnerved. Anyone who knew Tommy knew that he usually couldn’t stop talking, even past when he would be told to shut up. He hardly even winced as Techno began to apply the ointment, despite the fact that it had to be stinging his tender wounds. 

Techno could hear angry voices from the living room, albeit muffled due to the closed door. He knew Tommy could too, as his brother’s head had swiveled towards it, and the pink haired teen could practically see him straining his ears. 

“Don’t,” he said, a bit gruffly. “Don’t listen to him right now.” He hoped Tommy would understand his advice, as unclear as it was. He’d had years of practice, after all. 

“I just-” the younger starts, then stops, sounding as if his throat was swelling up, stopping the words from flowing. “I’m so scared, Tech.” His words hang in the bathroom, finding company in the distant argument from the other room, the slow drip of the leaky faucet Phil still hadn’t gotten around to fixing, and the night breeze outside the window. 

Scared for him or scared of him, Techno wants to ask. A lump in his throat all of a sudden begins to grow as the reality of the situation sinks in. It’s the middle of the night, they should both be asleep, and yet here he is, in the bathroom, cleaning up his thirteen year old brother from the remnants of their other brother’s… well. That was part of the problem, wasn’t it? That no one in the family wanted to call it what it was. 

Feeling a rush, an unwelcome and uncomfortable one, Techno finally speaks. “Why did you take it?” he asks, voice hardly more than a whisper, both out of a desire for this conversation to stay between them and, more than he’d like to admit, because of the lump making a home where his voice box should be. 

Finally, Tommy grows angry. “What else was I supposed to do, Techno? Just stand there and let it happen?” The “like you do” went unsaid, but it still reverbated between the tiles. 

“You can’t just-” Techno wants to facepalm, something so inappropriate for the situation that he can hardly believe he’d almost done it. “He can just get more, Tommy.”

“Then I’ll keep taking it,” he says, and Techno gets the feeling he’d be crossing his arms if they didn’t still lay in Techno’s hands. 

“And keep getting caught, like tonight?” The boy in front of him bites his lip and avoids his gaze, and Techno feels bad. Tommy’s smart, sure, he’s perceptive as hell when he wants to be, but he’s still thirteen. Hardly even a teenager. This was- well, it was a lot. For anybody. And Techno really shouldn’t be giving advice when he wasn’t doing anything commendable in this situation either. While Tommy might be taking direct action, while Phil might be trying to bring the hammer down, Techno had been addressing it by not addressing it. Instead of reaching out, as misguided as the others’ attempts had been, Techno had left his brother, his  _ twin,  _ to deal with the problem alone, no input from him at all. A wave of guilt seemed to crash over him, turning his stomach sour. 

Tommy shifted in front of him, sending another wave of alcoholic scent, from when the bottle had broken and soaked into his shirt, and Techno wanted to retch. The lump in his throat had returned with a vengeance. 

“What else was I supposed to do?” Tommy repeats, wetly. 

  
Techno wraps the kid in front of him in his arms, letting him cry into his shirt, allowing the lump in his throat to push tears out of his own eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says, and repeats again. “I’m so sorry.” It’s to Tommy, yes, but it's to Wilbur as well. It’s to make up for his failure as an older brother. To make up for what he’d sat back and allowed to happen under his nose. To make up for the hurt he’d allowed without saying a word, without  _ taking notice.  _ The argument had progressed to shouts in the living room, but Techno blocked it out for just a bit longer, focusing solely on Tommy. He owed him that at the very least. 

**Author's Note:**

> if you or someone you know is struggling with anything similar, please reach out to a person you trust. dont do what tommy did, its not going to help.


End file.
